One small non-tech related post. On August 16th, 2007, our son was born and joined our small happy family of Mother, Father, and Muirna (our dog). He was a healthy 9 lbs 4oz and mother and child are doing well. Very busy learning how to fit our lives into our son’s schedule, but all very happy.
Oh, and yes, I have learned that sleep is optional.
Well, today is a good day not to live or work in Germany if you make your living with technology. Today Germany officially makes it illegal to use or develop security tools which could at all be used as “hacking tools” regardless of actual use or intent. That means you can’t create or use a tool to scan your own network for errors in security that you made. So you’ll just have to wait until some Black Hat hacker breaks into your network to learn of your mistakes. Man is this a stupid law..
Germany enacts “anti-hacker” law
Well, LinuxWorld San Francisco Expo and Conference wrapped up this week. I was the Security Track Chair (Part of the Program Committee) and hope that people found the talks helpful and full of quality tech info. Unfortunately I missed out on attending this year, as I’m currently on baby watch (waiting for our first child to make his debut into the world). Looking forward to getting some feedback and finding out how things went.
LinuxWorld Expo San Francisco 2007
Excellent news for the Linux community, Judge Dale Kimball ruled late yesterday that SCO does not own the Unix and Unixware copyrights, that in fact Novell owns the copyright. This seriously guts SCO’s lawsuits with IBM, RedHat, AutoZone, and the Linux world in general. After having failed to provide any examples of code in Linux that infringed, then changing their case to a contract dispute with IBM over copyright, they have now been told they don’t even own that copyright. Doesn’t look good for SCO, hopefully this is the end of their FUD (why do I doubt that 
).
Judge rules Novell owns Unix copyrights.
Wrote another article about Grids. This one is about migrating from WS-RF to WS-RT. It covers some of the general issues and components of each standard you’ll have to focus on and provides links to more detailed information for implementing your solution. I had some experience with WS-RF and this article helped me learn more about WS-RT myself. Hope it help others as well!
Well, looks like I won’t have to lug my heavy MacBook Pro 15″ to work anymore. I work with computers a lot, and it’s generally helpful to have a laptop with me on my commute in and out of work. It’s also nice to have a laptop at work in case I need to do some emergency work outside of the office. It’s also nice to be able to have a full size laptop at home to sit on the couch and catch up on tech news, newsgroups, mailing lists and chat with my friends who are scattered around the world.
I have two laptops, my old good friend the Sharp MM20 ultralight I bought new 3 years ago, and a nice MacBook Pro issued to me by work. Though I love the Sharp, it has a small screen and limited power for relaxing and playing on the net at home, hence I use the MacBook at home. I love the MacBook (Core Duo 2Ghz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD), but the thing weights a ton (though it’s not much heavier than the smaller 13″ MacBooks) and is not much fun to lug around in a bag on my commute in and out of work. Ok, you might say that I should just leave the MacBook at home, catch is I need some of the admin tools and gui provide by the MacBook to manage Apple specific resources at work. So for the past year I’ve lugged the MacBook into work every day. It’s nice having the power, but it’s just too heavy (why did Apple not develop a 12″ MacBook Pro? The 13″ is just not a replacement for that).
Well, things have changed. My work replacement cycle computer has arrived and I now have a Mac Pro desktop at work. A nice one at that: Two Dual Core 2Ghz Xeon Chips, 4GB of Ram, Two GeForce cards for dual 1600×1200 displays, and a 250GB HD). Coupled with VMWare Fusion and it’s a great workstation for my needs. I can easily manage Mac and Linux resources from one machine, do development work, testing work, and I’ve got my trusty command line when I need it.
So out of retirement comes my old Sharp MM20 laptop (1Ghz Transmetta Efficeon CPU, 512MB RAM, 20GB HD, Ati Radeon Graphics 16MB Ram, 10.4″ LCD). It’s not a screamer but it’s very light, think 1.9lbs! That’s with the normal battery! Barely even feel it in my bag. I decided it was time that I see what Fedora 7 had to offer. All my personal machines currently have Fedora Core 6 installed and since I was bringing this back to active service I wiped it and started fresh with Fedora 7. The install went smooth (I’ll do a write up later) and, with some minor tweaks, looks and runs well. Now this laptop doesn’t have incredible 3D acceleration ability, but I couldn’t help giving the “Enhanced Desktop” ie compiz a try. Wow, it’s perfect. That is what this little laptop need to make it more effective. Though it’s not perfectly smooth on transitions, I think it’s smoother than without compiz enabled. Also, the small screen isn’t as limited with access to the mac expose like affects. A quick mouse pointer to the upright corner brings a collage of all open windows, allowing easy and quick selection and navigation. With a refreshed standard battery, this should be a great travel companion as I commute or walk around work outside of office. Not to mention, even though it is three years old, people are amazed at how small, light, and slick looking the Sharp is. Too bad they don’t make them like they used to.
The latest version of Pidgin (used to be gaim) was released. I haven’t found any nice rpm’s for Fedora Core 6 yet (that would install) so I went ahead and made my own. No warranty whatsoever on anything about them. They work on my FC6 box, and that’s about all I know.
UPDATE: Ok as many are well aware of Fedora Core has now switched over to Pidgin and the pidgin group now has a YUM repo setup and working for Fedora. So my rpm’s aren’t needed, just go to pidgin.im and use their YUM repo.
Here is a good article on what SELinux in RHEL 5 has brought to the table. Some cool new features and a lot more protection:
http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2007/05/04/whats-new-in-selinux-for-red-hat-enterprise-linux-5/
There is also some interesting points in the comment section. Basically, a reminder that NO security mechanism is 100% safe, but it’s better than nothing and should always be considered when looking at what you need for your deployment.
Not my normal posting (Ok, so I don’t realy have a normal posting), but this really bugs me.
I ran across this article today:
“I’ve got some sawdust: can I call it chocolate?”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/24/chocolate_terror/
The generalist idea is that the Chocolate Manufactures Association and
Grocers Associations are asking the FDA to change the rules so that a mixture of vegetable oil, whey protein, and artrificial flavorings can be called “Real Chocolate” even though they don’t have any real cocoa (chocolate) or dairy in them. I personally don’t like the idea of being sold chocolate (and saying for it) when it isn’t actually chocolate. Not to mention the few (and very few) benefits of eating chocolate will be gone, replaced with increased Trans Fats instead. And it would be perfectly legal for them to advertise these as real chocolate if it’s passed. If this bugs you too, then you can go here:
http://dontmesswithourchocolate.guittard.com/
(This is a website of a chocolate manufacture who doesn’t want to have this happen)
On that site you can click on the “How To Help” link that will take you to FDA where you can register your concerns with this rule change. Only catch is that the comment period end the end of day April 25th (tomorrow).
They’ve done it again in Basketball, National Champions two years running, and simultaneous champions in Basketball and Football at the same time. Love my Gators!!